Among other things, Stewart and Gyllenhaal discussed the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman. I’m against. I saw Affleck speak at the Democratic Convention in 2008, I’m pretty sure it was a small gay caucus meeting, and I was impressed. I have not, however, felt the same way about his acting. We’ll see how he does. But I’m still scratching my head on this one.

John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the former editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown (1989); and worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. Frequent TV pundit: O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Bio, article archive.

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Indigo

Jake . . .? I gather he’s PC but he’s not even on the radar, just another player cashing in on the gay-theme. That’s destined to fade away and leave a taste we have not yet learned to appreciate, one day destined to be called the Amos-and-Andy-go-to-Stockholm Syndrome.

About rebooting the old stories: John Carter of Mars flopped, somehow. Too bad because that was one of my old time favorites. Then there was Tarzan but nowadays he’s just another colonial exploiting the locals. That’s a tough barrier to get past and probably best left in the past. Batman and Superman are cash cows but there’s not much story left in them. The Justice League . . . ? Yeah, right. Then there’s my all time favorite, Flash Gordon! I can easily visualize Ryan Gosling in short shorts! Is time yet? Reboot Flash Gordon!

Mike_in_the_Tundra

I’m a big fan of Maggie, but I really feel that Jake is the cutest of the two siblings. I do have a problem with “Prisoners.” A movie with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal will cause me to have sensory overload.

http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind BeccaM

He’s cute for sure, but I think his sister is hotter.

http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

Ditto the Yum!

Monoceros Forth

Well, “lately” was a bit of an understatement about Miller. I’m not the oldest guy in the world but I still have it stuck in my mind that anything later than about the mid-nineties is somehow recent.

I hated 300 by the way. I was prepared to love it since I’d read Year One not long before and was also studying Latin and Greek in school at the time and I was prepared to be amazed. Instead I got this ridiculous wank-fest where the war between Greece and Persia was reduced to a personal grudge match between cartoonishly macho Leonidas and cartoonishly foppish Xerxes. I know, artistic liberties and all that, but Jesus Christ. Just thinking about what Miller did with Xerxes is pissing me off all over again.

I’d say Dave Sim did progress from being just an opinionated and misogynistic creep with a festering grudge against his ex-wife to genuinely loopy. For a while he was claiming that he’d successfully conquered his sex drive by power of will. 9/11 sent him into frothing rants too.

And, yeah, my parallelism with Card is poor at best.

JozefAL

Two points regarding Miller.

1– “. . . lately he’s gone as mad as Dave Sim or Orson Scott Card.” Really? You think it’s just “lately?” The man’s been off his rocker for at least the past decade. After 9/11 he went batshit (no pun intended) crazy when it came to Muslims and Iranians. (While the Iranians weren’t overly thrilled about Miller’s depiction of Xerxes, there was, at least, a touch of historic reality in “300.” The overly flamboyant depiction, however, didn’t exactly warm the hearts of LGBT comic fans.) Then, he announced his plans to have Batman capture bin Laden which DC officials okayed, at least in principle–they did reserve the right to see the product before agreeing to publish the book. As it turned out, when DC saw Miller’s final product, they were, by all accounts, utterly appalled and refused to approve the use of Batman or any other DC characters which meant Miller had to redraw pages to remove all DC characters (I know Batman–obviously–but I also read that Catwoman appeared in the work as well). Miller finally released the book as “Holy Terror” about 2 or 3 years ago through Legendary Comics (and this was after claiming that HE decided that “it wasn’t a Batman story”). Yet from reviews I read, Miller didn’t do that good a job of “correcting” the artwork–several reviewers said they could still see outlines of Batman’s outfit and that other “edits” seemed only half-heartedly done. As for Sim and Card, Sim was less “mad” and more “stubbornly opinionated” while Card was never really “mad,” just “blackhearted bigot.”

2-“He had one good Batman story in him, Year One (I don’t think The Dark Knight Returns stands up nearly as well). . . .” Opinions vary and all but Year One wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for The Dark Knight Returns. And, The Dark Knight Returns suffered more from the release of The Dark Knight Strikes Back (aka DK2) and his unfinished effort of All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. But, bear in mind that when Miller wrote The Dark Knight Returns, he was actually using the 1950s Silver Age Batman as his springboard (essentially Miller was ignoring all the Batman stories that came about following the “New Look Batman” which was when the yellow oval first appeared on the suit in the comics, largely as a result of the TV series). Remember that in The Dark Knight Returns, the President of the United States was Ronald Reagan. That meant the series was set IN THE PRESENT–but it was simply an alternate present time. (Plus, in interviews that Miller gave at the time, one of his biggest peeves was that people thought the story was set in the future of DC’s then-current continuity.) After DC revamped its universe in the post-Crisis era, Miller was asked to relaunch Batman–like Superman and Wonder Woman, the new Batman series was supposed to be launch with a new #1 but accounts vary as to why it didn’t–and even though the series didn’t fully reboot, Miller did make a number of changes to Batman’s then-known history, many of which (such as Selina “Catwoman” Kyle a prostitute) had their origins in The Dark Knight Returns.

http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind BeccaM

And not just any ‘Reluctant Hero’, but the same one we’ve seen a dozen times before.

http://heimaey.us/ heimaey

He’s so cute I can’t stand it.

http://heimaey.us/ heimaey

I don’t know why there needs to be another batman movie. I’m 40 and I have been watching them since I was in High School. It’s time for a break.

Monoceros Forth

In fact, I’m rather tired of the nearly complete lack of creativity
involved in constantly ‘rebooting’ one franchise or another —
essentially telling the same damned story, only with minor variations.

Isn’t that the truth. Nobody I know, nobody at all, wants to see origin stories again and again, especially the origin stories that everyone already knows. Every knows that Superman’s the last son of Krypton, that Batman’s parents were shot dead in front of him and that Peter Parker got bit by a spider and feels guilty about Uncle Ben. I suppose there might be some value in seeing different interpretations of these events, the same way that there’s some value in seeing different interpretations on stage of Shakespeare plays or Wagner operas. But, for heaven’s sake, there’s so much other material out there to work with.

I suspect that Hollywood screenwriters have gotten it fixed in their tiny brains that all stories must be a stereotyped Hero’s Journey(TM) featuring a stereotypical Reluctant Hero(TM), hence their love of retelling origin stories ad nauseam.

http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind BeccaM

I play the Batman video games. That’s about the extent of my interest in the character anymore.

In fact, I’m rather tired of the nearly complete lack of creativity involved in constantly ‘rebooting’ one franchise or another — essentially telling the same damned story, only with minor variations. “Sorry Peter Parker, no matter who ends up being your first villain, your uncle always gets killed.”

Monoceros Forth

I’m Batmanned out, I think, and surely I’m not the only one feeling like this. He’s an interesting enough character to sustain multiple stories but only if you abandon the notion that they all have to be epic struggles between superhero and supervillain. No Batman movie though is going to deviate from the hero vs. villain(s) structure. It’s all going to be so…stale.

And Frank Miller’s gonna be involved, too. That bodes far worse than the casting of Ben Affleck, if you ask me. He had one good Batman story in him, Year One (I don’t think The Dark Knight Returns stands up nearly as well), and lately he’s gone as mad as Dave Sim or Orson Scott Card.